The sport of football as a whole has taken strides to make the game a safer sport so that it can last into the future. So when a video of children doing a modified version of an Oklahoma drill went viral, USA Football let it be known that this is not the way the game should be taught.
“This is against everything that we in football stand for,” the CEO of USA Football, Scott Hallenbeck, said in a tweet containing a still shot of the video on Wednesday. “@USAFootball believes in a safer, smarter game taught by trained coaches to athletes according to their developmental readiness. We support the thousands of coaches committed to teach the right way with us.”
In the clip, two children are participating in a tackling drill where the ball carrier and the defender collide at full speed. Instead of this being an even hit, the unprepared defender approaches the ball carrier without using proper tackling fundamentals and gets ran over. The ball carrier also lowers his helmet to create the head-to-head collision that football officials are trying to eliminate from the game.
The Oklahoma drill and other full-contact drills were banned from NFL practices in 2019. Although it is important for young players to develop game-speed reps, many people—including former NFL players and analysts—that saw the video thought the participants were too young and not prepared for this type of contact.
